


Lovesick

by Lailyn



Series: Now That's What I Call Magic! [6]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Romance, Sick Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23408800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lailyn/pseuds/Lailyn
Summary: Loki fears that Stephen is deathly ill. Stephen thinks Loki might just be right.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange
Series: Now That's What I Call Magic! [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581754
Comments: 18
Kudos: 99





	Lovesick

Loki pulled Stephen’s head into the bend of his arm. The sheer heat of Stephen’s forehead against his own cool skin was deeply alarming.

“How high can your body temperature go before you melt into a puddle of goo?” he muttered to himself, but judging from the way Stephen’s tired chuckle jiggled against his throat, his human lover must have found it amusing.

“It’s not funny, Stephen,” Loki growled. “Have you never seen it happen?”

“No,” Stephen gave a wet chortle; his blocked nose was doing its best to suffocate him alive. “Have you?”

“Yes!” Loki snapped. “Have I not told you of the Grandmaster’s Melt Stick before?”

“That’d better be a rhetorical question, Loki, because you know damn well you haven’t,” Stephen said lightly. “You haven’t told me much of anything. About anybody.” _Not even about yourself_ , he added silently.

The best way, Loki had learnt, to break awkward silences was to keep on talking. “Well, short of sucking this virus out of you –”

“Bad idea, Loki, bad _bad_ idea – ”

Loki raised his voice by a few decibels, as he was right to in the face of such rude interruption, “Since you have explicitly _forbidden_ me from taking on this illness of yours and sparing us both the misery of being cooped up in your sickbed, swimming in your sweat – ”

“There’s plenty of space to go around!” Stephen waved an irritable hand around the Sanctum, “You can’t get anything better in New York City, this is some prime real estate we’re living in – ”

“Tell me one thing I can do to make the day better for you.”

Stephen could not believe his ears. “That…doesn’t sound like you at all.”

He pulled back and eyed his much-cherished bed companion suspiciously. “Where is Loki and what have you done to him?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Strange.”

Loki dropped his eyes, before reluctantly divulging his secret. “I was listening to one of Bruce’s podcasts the other day. It’s supposed to magically improve most, if not all your relationships.”

Stephen fought the urge to smile. “Does it work?”

“I don’t know,” Loki answered truthfully. “You’re the first human being I’ve ever tried it on.”

Stephen’s face slowly broke into a soft smile.

“So…what about it?” Loki asked hesitantly. He bit the inside of his lower lip. “Shall I make you some soup?”

“You…want to make me soup?”

“I am over a thousand years old, Strange. I assure you I can manage something as simple as reading the label on a can of soup and upending it into a pan over your primitive little stove.”

Stephen shook his head, the smile of amusement never leaving his lips.

“Loki of Asgard, offering to make me soup.” A blissful sigh. “I can die happy.”

“Stephen!” Loki gnashed his teeth, and Stephen quickly pulled Loki into his arms.

“Don’t need soup,” he mumbled.

Loki tried to untangle himself from Stephen’s shivery, sweaty embrace. “But you haven’t eaten all day – ”

“I’ll only bring it back up,” Stephen mewled in protest. “My stomach’s all kinds of upset.”

“Still?” Loki frowned. “That’s what you said last night.”

Stephen only shrugged.

“Should I call someone?” Loki wondered aloud, one hand finding its way to Stephen’s hard, knotted belly. “One of your doctor friends? Or the ones I keep seeing on TV? One of those celebrity doctors with perfect teeth?”

“You can’t trust them,” Stephen said darkly.

“They also have perfect hair,” Loki reasoned, combing his fingers through Stephen’s hair, all matted to his scalp in a sweaty, messy tangle. “Like you used to.”

“There is no need, Loki,” Stephen said gently. He coughed delicately against a closed fist, before mumbling, “I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe I should take you back to Asgard,” Loki mulled. “Our Healers may be able to help you.”

“The entire city is under quarantine, Loki. It would be socially irresponsible and unethical of me to leave. I might just spread this sickness to your entire people. For all you know it could be fatal to Asgardians.”

“It’s fatal to _you_.” In his rising panic, Loki’s voice began to shrill. “That’s how many dead now in your city alone? A thousand?”

“I’m fit. And young.” At Loki’s scathing glare, Stephen amended, “Young-ish.”

“I told you to take some of my daily supplement before this virus situation became such a big thing,” Loki berated loudly. “You wouldn’t have succumbed to such malady so easily.’

“Now _that_ tonic of yours would definitely have been fatal to me,” Stephen said dryly. “Do you know how much hemlock is in that thing? I had it tested.”

“It’s my Mother’s recipe,” Loki said stubbornly.

“And your Mother was an all-powerful Norse Goddess who lived thousands of years.”

“Exactly,” Loki bristled.

“It was poison hemlock that killed Socrates, Loki.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well. When you put it that way,” Loki grumbled. He looked about ready to launch into yet another tirade, when a chill rippled through Stephen’s entire frame, shrinking him further into a tight shell under the covers.

Breath after painful breath rattled Stephen’s chest as he fought to ride the rigor out.

“What hurts, Stephen?” Loki fought to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

Was this it? Was this…the end?

“Head. Stomach. Every j-joint in my body.” Loki could hear Stephen’s chattering. “But mostly my head.”

“Do you think you can go to sleep?” Loki massaged the back of Stephen’s head helplessly. “Maybe then you’ll feel better?”

A moan escaped, low and painful. “I’m trying.”

Stephen involuntarily leaned into Loki, as if seeking respite from the fever ravaging his body. “This must pass soon. Can’t get any worse than this.”

Loki had heard the exact words uttered by dying people right before they passed too many times before in his lifetime to bother hiding his panic anymore.

Pressing himself against the headboard, he gathered Stephen into his arms and before Loki realised what he was doing, he started to rock back and forth slowly and began to sing softly a sombre, yet soothing tune.

_In a shady nook one moonlit night_

_A leprechaun I spied._

_With scarlet cap and coat of green_

_A cruiskeen by his side._

_‘Twas tick tock tick his hammer went_

_Upon a tiny shoe._

_Oh, I laugh to think of his purse of gold,_

_But the fairy was laughing, too._

_With tiptoe step and beating heart_

_Quite softly I drew nigh_

_There was mischief in his merry face_

_A twinkle in his eye_

_He hammered and sang with teeny voice_

_And sipped his mountain dew_

_Oh! I laughed to think he was caught at last,_

_But the fairy was laughing, too._

_As quick as thought I seized the elf_

_"Give me your purse!" I cried_

_"The purse" - says he - "is in her hand"_

_"That lady by your side"_

_I turned to look, the elf was gone_

_And what was I to do?_

_And I laughed to think what a fool I'd been_

_But the fairy was laughing, too_

By the time the song was over, Stephen was no longer shaking,

But to leave the comfort of Loki’s arms? It was unthinkable.

He lifted his head off Loki’s chest and looked up in stark wonder. “Did your Mother sing that to you?”

“No.” Grief flickered through Loki’s eyes and disappeared, fleeting too briefly for Stephen to call it out, yet too obvious for Stephen to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen said quietly. He rested his head once more against Loki’s breastbone. “I just thought it would be a nice song to sing to your children.”

“It is,” Loki agreed, his voice tinged with a deep sadness Stephen could not comprehend, until he sensed Loki’s ancient heart picking up speed, thumping against his cheek. “I used to sing it to mine.”

Stephen’s eyes flew open. His head whipped up. “Loki…”

“Story for another day, Stephen,” Loki braved a smile through suddenly tear-glistened eyes. “You need to rest now.”

Stephen opened his mouth to speak, but Loki did not think he could bear it. He clapped a hand over Stephen’s mouth and shook his head pleadingly. _“Hush.”_

Stephen waited, and waited, and when Loki’s hand finally fell away, he did not speak immediately.

He reached up to touch Loki’s face.

As each minute stretched painfully into the next, Stephen knew he had to be the one to break the silence, or he would never be able to forgive himself.

“We can sing it to our own children someday.” Stephen’s tone was firm, but the fingers thumbing Loki’s tears away were unearthly gentle. “How would you like that?”

“I would like that,” Loki finally said, hanging his head low, so low his hair hid most of his face. _“So very much.”_

“Can’t wait to get started,” Stephen murmured against Loki’s hair-covered forehead.

“You’d better not die then. Not yet.” Loki’s fingers curled around the raggedy neckline of Stephen’s sweat-soaked T-shirt. Stephen placed his own hand over them.

"Not yet," he soothed.

“You promise?”

Stephen could only nod. What was he to do?

What a fool he had been, to have not realised it sooner.

What was he to do? He was in love.

Hopelessly, madly in love.

So he raised the cold, cold hand to his lips. He pressed a hot, feverish kiss to the bony knuckles and repeated his promise. “Not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Loki was singing the Leprechaun Song, an Irish folk song - you can listen to it on Youtube, just look for Susan Reed - The Leprechaun.
> 
> Dedicated to all those affected by the global outbreak. Keep safe, everyone. And thank you for reading. ♡


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